Balcony
by mytsie
Summary: I wish it would rain." Amanda Grayson suffers moderate homesickness. Amanda/Sarek Fluff.


_Disclaimer: If I owned Star Trek, I'm sure someone would have let me know by now._

_AN: Written for a prompt about homesickness. So much Sarek/Amanda Fluff in my life. Geez._

**Balcony.**

"You know," Amanda prefaced as she stared off the balcony at the distant shapes of foreign mountains. The mantle of Vulcan was composed of a different ratio of minerals than Earth. The soil was redder, the rocks were harder, and even the mountains appeared sharper—more angular—and less rolling than she was accustomed to. The atmosphere was just thin enough that it was fooling her into thinking they were closer than they should be. Her conscious mind reminded her subconscious of these facts, but her subconscious was having trouble absorbing the concept.

Somewhere, in the midst of her pondering, she'd forgotten what she was going to say. Sarek was several feet behind her, she could feel him there as surely as though he'd announced it. He waited in calm silence and the light summer—no, Vulcan summer was called _Falek'wak_—breeze stirred her sleeves just enough to remind her of the sweltering heat to come. Several minutes passed and she leaned forward on the minimalistic handrail that surrounded the balcony. She was tempted to sit on the rail, but it always made Sarek very uneasy.

"Your comment is indicative of continuation," Sarek finally said. Amanda glanced over her shoulder at him and couldn't manage to keep her smile down. He looked utterly put out as he stood just beyond the threshold of the balcony doors. His hands were folded behind his back, as they often were when he was uncertain how to deal with her, and his eyebrows were set in an unimposing line—or what he _thought_ was an unimposing line, at least. Idly, he reminded her of her brother's pit bull—an angry looking, bad tempered creature who always tried to appear as happy and easygoing as possible around her. Sarek arched one of his eyebrows—oh right, telepathic—and Amanda's smile tightened as she restrained her laughter.

"Oh, it's nothing," she responded blithely and looked away—the too close, too distant mountains returned her thoughts to Earth. Suddenly, she wanted to pet her brother's dog and sit on his porch arguing about whether or not Idaho contained the ideal climate. She resisted the emotion, but the surge of longing slipped past her rationality and she sighed. "The L'langon Mountains are quite a ways off, right?"

Sarek's steps were so soft that Amanda didn't realize he was moving until he stepped up beside her. He was taller than her by about a foot—it often seemed more due to his ramrod posture—and his tall frame blocked the minuscule breeze. "They are ten days walking distance from the edge of the city, approximately four hundred kilometers."

"Hm," Amanda answered and leaned on the handrail again. She could feel his eyes on her back as she stared off at the distant mountains—she wouldn't be able to see that far with the sharper curvature of the Earth. Her mind drifted away and she stared, blankly at the distant shapes. Her meandering thoughts drifted back to her brother and subsequently to her parents. The last time she'd been home, it had rained for a week straight, ruining all their plans. It didn't rain on Vulcan—not in the conceptual sense. She frowned at the pang that thought caused.

"You find this situation unsatisfactory?" Sarek prompted after several minutes and Amanda shrugged.

"I'm being silly," Amanda assured him and shook her head. "It's strange how the grass always seems greener...." Though he didn't say it, Amanda got the distinct impression that he wanted to point out that there was _no_ grass on Vulcan, thereby making it impossible for the grass to be anything. Her heart twinged with the unspoken reminder. "I wish it would rain."

"That is..." Sarek trailed off as he looked up at the dusk sky. The sun--_Alam'ak_ was the name of Vulcan's principle star--had set behind them and its binary siblings cast dim white and pink light across the ground. "...Very unlikely to occur."

"I know," Amanda admitted as she pulled back from the handrail and straightened out. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky--not even the mild discoloration of moisture. "I just wish it would." She leaned against Sarek and, to his credit, he didn't stiffen.

"I was informed that even humans found the weather in San Francisco to be of poor quality," Sarek responded, an edge of curiosity in his voice, and Amanda laughed as she plucked one of his arms from behind his back and draped it around her shoulders. He didn't fight her as she did so, though the other remained behind his back.

"You don't miss it until it's gone," Amanda answered, "Scientific fact. Trust me."

"Indeed," Sarek commented and, though he desperately wanted to, he didn't correct her.

Definitely reminded her of that dog.


End file.
